Dealing with casual insults from family

[bridgebetween]

I have been getting casual and sometimes not too subtle insults from family members, for my financial habits.
From off the cuff remarks, to outright hostility. Tell me, do terms like tight-ass, skinflint, penny pinching miser etc. cause you offence?
Even my mother asks me, where did this early retirement idea come from, a man should be working, not loafing around.

I find that I have to bite my tongue and soldier on.

How does anyone cope with this, without going on the offensive?

[IlliniDave]

Nope. No offense. To me they are compliments and I often apply them to myself.

I suppose though it is all in the delivery of whoever is saying it. My family tends to be tongue-in-cheek with our ribbing of each other.

If that's the response you get from those close to you it is probably best to avoid talking about your personal plans and financial plans around/with them. And don't get tempted to lecture them on the the "smart" way to do things. Talk about the weather instead.

[James_0011]

If you simply believe that the majority of people are morons its easy to not take offense to these insults. They may simply be too stupid to comprehend your lifestyle.

A gentler way to approach it is to believe that they're just responding to what they perceive as a challenge to their value system. Thus, really what they're doing when they insult you is protecting their ego - otherwise they would be forced to examine their own life which is a very uncomfortable thing to do.

I don't talk about my finances around people, and if someone insults me I simply say nothing or laugh at them depending on how much I want to frustrate them.

[OTCW]

Stop any discussion of money/finances around them. Keep it polite, but firmly out of bounds for discussion.

[Dragline]

Yes, reducing exposure either entirely or topically is the way to go.

And never try to teach pigs to sing. It wastes your time. And annoys the pig.

[7Wannabe5]

I was looking around a dilapidated, junk-laden office building that is owned by my friend who is worth over $65 million, and I found a little worn leather change purse. Somebody had drilled a hole in the metal clasp and put a teeny-tiny padlock through the hole. I assumed that somebody must have given it to him as a gag gift years ago. I showed it to him, and he just asked me if I wanted it. I said, "Yes.", and then forgot about the matter. A couple days later, he handed me the change purse absent the padlock. He couldn't find the key, so he had hacked it off so I could use the change purse. I believe he was totally oblivious to the humor intended.

I am not oblivious to the humor, but I am using the change purse as one of the components always packed in my camper back-pack which always goes in the basket in the front of my bike.

[Tyler9000]

Tell me, do terms like tight-ass, skinflint, penny pinching miser etc. cause you offence?

Have you considered that perhaps you're projecting a Scrooge-like unhealthy relationship with money? I'm not saying you should spend more, but maybe you should be more cognizant of how you present your lifestyle to others. Stop talking about frugality and start talking about the positive things you do with your life. And definitely don't advertise wealth, as that only invites skepticism and envy. Be a happy person supportive of other people but confident in your own decisions, and in my experience criticism will be exceedingly rare.

FWIW, my mom was worried about me quitting my job at first, but she's come around because she knows I'm happier and can tell by my actions that it's financially sustainable. I never talk with her about money or sacrifice. Only about freedom, life satisfaction, and my latest projects.

As a thought experiment, would you cast yourself as the best living example in a silent ERE movie with no dialogue? If not, what can you do differently to inspire others?

[Sclass]

I've had a lot of this from friends and family. Talked a lot about it in this forum.

It happens. Be happy you're not like them. Let them talk. Let them insult. It was painful when I was young and struggling with my status and identity among friends and family. Now I'm just happy to be me. I'm richer than all of them. And they know it and begrudgingly admit it rather than attack my methods like they used to.

At the end of the day I'm happy I took their crap and ran my own race. I could have ended up like them. Let's see would I trade my money for more admiration from these folks? Never. They sucked all a long.

The sad part is I considered these people my friends (and family). I had some pretty shallow relationships that really came apart over basically differences in bank statements. Pretty sad.

I like the 7W story about the locked change purse. I have a similar gag gift. It's this photo. A birthday card when I was pulling myself up. Not sure what the friends wanted as an end result. Let's say it hasn't done much for our relationship.



Good luck and keep dancing with yourself. If you succeed you'll get to a nice lonely place closer to the top where you'll find some new friends in the rarefied air. Sadly I'm still stuck with the silly family.

[Loner]

Insults tend to cause offence when you believe or fear to be true the characteristic that is attacked. If an uncle said “bridgebetween is a buffon blondie!”, but you have black hair, then you would dislike him as you’d realize he meant to hurt you, but you probably wouldn’t take offence. It is sometimes a form of insecurity about your choices. I find that I feel more and more secure myself as I put my plan in place and find that, yes, it’s actually possible to make money with money, and yes, my investments are growing, and yes, life stress evaporates completely once you have a vast amount of money to support yourself in case you need it.

Tyler’s point about better marketing your lifestyle is also a good one.

Deep down, we want to feel accepted and have people perceive us the same way we perceive ourselves. But that’s impossible. So it’s important to emphasize the parts of your choices and lifestyle that map to their values. Frame your choices differently with every person you meet. If your father values “hard work”, tell him how you don’t intend to loaf around, but “work for free” in a community garden (or whatever).

Seeing myself as frugal, I do find it offensive, more than I care to admit, when friends and family tell me I’m cheap, or insinuate it, especially after I agreed to help them move from an old house to a newer house... because they didn’t want to pay movers. But I have to remind myself that they love me. It’s just that, as James said, I am probably challenging their values and past choices by implicitly rejecting the consumerism they embrace. I also try to remind myself that I probably also insult them similarly, now and then, at times without noticing, and shouldn’t make a big deal out of it.

Otherwise, there is always the good old “let it go if you can’t control it”, even though it’s sometimes harder than “just not taking offence” instead of taking offence.

Good luck. Dealing with family is not always easy, but if you market your choices well, you just might plant a seed, and they might even slowly rally to your frugality. Being a leader is hard

Edit: clarification.

[IlliniDave]

... I have a similar gag gift. It's this photo. A birthday card when I was pulling myself up. Not sure what the friends wanted as an end result. Let's say it hasn't done much for our relationship.

Haha, I received the same card a few years ago! It was from one of my aunts who happens to be the only person in my family with any insight into financial situation and goals. She sent it after I paid off my house and I kept it in my office until I changed offices earlier this year. Sort of jarring to find it staring me in the face this morning.

[Sclass]

That's too funny. I was a little confused about the meaning of the card in my context. I think it was my 35th birthday. I'm not sure whether it was motivated by a challenge to existing values, envy or perhaps a reminder that I was acting badly.

The discussion of the psychology behind these attacks is excellent. I wish I'd read all this while I was going through it. It would have been easier. I recall feeling a bit betrayed the night I received this. I'd just spent a ton of money hosting my friends...my less fortunate friends...and this is what they did. I was naive.

But, hey I'm happy where I am now. My friends can keep their values.

[Did]

My mother has one "Don't you get bored?". Of course I had no way of dealing with it, except through irritation, but on the inevitable reflection I wish I had retorted with "Do you get bored with a three day weekend?".

[TopHatFox]

One can always fill their small room/home with tapestries, a tatami mat, dream catchers, candles, an essential oil diffuser, a Mexican Rug, dried flowers, etc., and call it an "aesthetic minimalist" lifestyle, perhaps filled with mindfulness, freedom, and wholesomeness.

Marketing is key. That and not giving a crap~

[Farm_or]

The mean spirits ever present in my friends and family would only be emboldened if I took offense to their jabs. Embrace their insults and join in - jokingly.

It is only fun to be offensive when somebody is offended. Time will reveal the truth to them.

A had a buddy from Jamaica years ago. He was such a joking guy that there wasn't anything that didn't run off him like water on a duck's back. I learned from him that its often good policy not to take yourself too seriously.

[Sclass]

It is only fun to be offensive when somebody is offended. Time will reveal the truth to them.

And that is indeed a sad day. I have old pals complaining that they cannot afford trendy shoes for their kids...that cost $40. I've got a relative complaining to me if I don't pay them before the 1st of June they'll have to pay late fees to their landlord. Seriously? A 55yo without a month's rent in the bank?

And then I have my friend calling, "hey Sclass the stock market is really going up fast now, what stock do I buy to double my money like in a year? My kid needs college tuition."

Or the relative calling saying he needs to figure out how to retire. He's 60 in tech and the younger guys are dissing his obsolete mind. The millennial SW engineers teasing him about his age and his only recourse is HR. "Sclass, my manager has it in for me, how do I like retire next year?"

so late in the game. Too bad.

Oddly most of the insulting naysayers have run off to hide. It's really hard accepting I was right...and worse personally paying the price for their lack of vision.

Ok, time to get up and join my SO watching Return of the Jedi. I can hear Palpatine scolding Luke. "Don't you get bored?" Star Wars always rocks.

[JamesR]

It sounds like these insults are happening because you're making it a little too obvious.

If you're getting into social situations where money is a factor, like going for drinks or dinner, that's NOT the time to suddenly cheap out by only ordering water & making a meal out of saltines with ketchup. You're better off avoiding those situations completely if you don't want to spend money.

[slowtraveler]

I used to get a lot of these too. Cheap was okay but I noticed some people thought all I cared about was saving every penny obsessively and that I could change the way I'm seen. I have a few pairs of very high quality clothes so I don't have to rock old volunteer shirts that are literally disintegrating with holes.

People get used to your new habits but it sounds like your sharing it an a way that invites hostility rather than curiosity. People want to feel smart and financially savvy.

[jacob]

I think it depends a lot on both which persons are involved (different reactions from different people) and how you behave and project yourself. The latter may change over the years. Look at C40, for example, and how he's pretty much convinced (passively I think) his family into retiring ASAP as well.

From what I've seen over the years wrt people learning about frugality/FIRE/ERE ... is that they get super-excited and hardcore about it and then proceed to tell everybody about it. This has two problems: First, in the beginning one tends to be hardcore at inappropriate times. As mentioned above, cheaping out at social outings is not a good idea. (They either need to be avoided or changed.). Second, most people aren't interested---at least not immediately. Some will eventually (over years) follow your actions ... but never your words. If you talk about not spending money all the time, then in turn, they will talk about what a miser you are, etc.

The solution here is to figure out "what to show" and "who to show it to". This is the social strategy of "passing". Most people don't really care about your personal finance habits, so as long as you don't make them obvious, people won't notice.

Most people think in concrete terms. So, for example, when we moved into an RV for a few years back in 2008, the average person would not put 2 and 2 together and conclude: "Wow, this is genius. The cost of living is minuscule. Therefore, it follows that they must be saving a lot of money". Rather, they would think something like "They now live in a RV in a trailer park just like Uncle Doofus who's a total failure at life. Therefore, they are also total failures."

Because we didn't travel (and post exotic pictures on the internet), I solved this with a passive-aggressive offensive by mentioning that "our bills" was paid with this of that dividend from our "holdings" whenever such things came up in conversations, e.g. "I've set it up so the dividends from my shares in General Electric pays the electric bill." That only took few mentions and the prejudices went away.

After we bought the house, the tide became stronger. I suppose the line of thinking is now "They now own a house just like my successful sister despite only having one income and yet they never complain about being in debt. I wonder how they do it?" So the grief about not pursuing the American Dream "because RV and retired early" has turned into "please tell me what your financial secrets are?"

I think this is a very important point. You will be far more convincing to concrete-thinkers if you are seen to be achieving goals that they would also like despite pursuing a different way of spending. I'll use C40 again because his journal shows exactly that. Many people want to travel and see beautiful landscapes. MMM is also a good example. Many people want a nice suburban house and being a full time parent. Whereas I'm a good counter-example to how not to present oneself to the masses or to family and friends for that matter: All I want is big pile of books, internet, and some intellectual project/problem to spend most of my time thinking about. That is neither something most people are interested in; nor is it something that goes over well in "show and tell".

You might also want to consider the difference in FIRE Wheaton levels. People are prone to insulting what they don't understand or relate to.

[Frugalitifree]

Try to keep topic to a minimum around the sceptics/cynics(As an Irish man, I know there are many about). For me, whenever people looked puzzled or sceptical upon the mention of my frugal lifestyle and the motivations behind it I just tell them its an experiment I'm undertaking in my life. I say if it doesn't work I'll go back to 'normal'. I have no intentions of doing any such thing but this answer always seems to placate them. Those that are interested ask more and the conversation can flow

[jim234]

Just think to the future when you tell them you quit work, and they still have decades of toil ahead of them.
I did this. He who laughs last, laughs best.